Night Watch: BELGRADE – AKI reports that the Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS), after two rounds of voting on Sunday, has elected Ivica Dacic, 40, as the new head of the party, replacing Slobodan Miliosevic who died in jail in the Hague-Netherlands last March. Milosevic had been in the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), since June 2001, after having been accused by the European Union-NATO – UN Security Council, since the early 1990s, for being the sole cause of the war in the divided Yugoslavia. [AKI]

For matters of military convenience, searching for what they assumed would be an easy power-projection, after the Cold War had ended in 1990, NATO-Brussels declared war on Serbia and Serbian people in 1994, first by bombing Serbs in Bosnia then Serbia itself for 78 days in 1999 and then deploying troops which are still there. Milosevic’s arrest was intended to legitimize the policy of these political – military institutions, whose sense of mission was to use the conflict to establish their vision of the “New World Order”. Though there has never been any formal-official declaration of war the act itself and subsequent attacks by NATO was the declaration.

They essentially made Milosevic – Serbia a scapegoat and the Serbs have not forgotten. A year after the 1999 air campaign, which deliberately destroyed a lot of civilian buildings that Brussels dismissed as “collateral damage”, I heard a young member of Serbia’s Parliament address the Chicago Council on Global Relations in a well attended gathering. He mentioned most Serbs now view the NATO-EU-UN military forces based there as occupiers. Last January crossfirewar.com reported the security agreement signed between Tehran-Belgrade and on November 11 Athens signed one also with Belgrade, which should be no surprise since Greece openly helped Serbia break the economic blockade the European Community, based in Brussels, imposed on Serbia in 1992.

Bucharest – Sofia also assisted Belgrade economically and it was one of the first indications that the fighting in the divided Yugoslavia was dividing more than just Yugoslavia. Governments in Northern and Western Europe were the ones that began the international recognition of the division, led by Germany, but governments in Southeast Europe were helping Serbia and other nations that came from the divided country like Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina. Governments from the Islamic world, Kuala Lumpur-Ankara-Tehran -Tripoli also sent material assistance despite the embargo, which was supposed to be enforced by NATO.

The economic assistance preceded the military assistance that followed and they know fighting can resume any moment over Kosovo. That is why Germany has sent to Poland Leopard tanks, the U. S. has upgraded Poland’s air force with F-16s and Moscow has been helping Warsaw upgrade its Soviet era fighter planes. Someone will have to hold the line somewhere when Iran uses this theatre as its avenue of invasion into Europe next year. Everyone in the Balkans hates Vienna once again, since Vienna was supposed to orchestrate the resolution of the civil war and their attempt has been nothing short of dictatorial, a hatred Tehran has been employing as a very strategic military escort service. The silencing of Vienna would end the UN investigation into Iran’s nuclear program since the UN-International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), that has been leading the investigation, is based there.

Davic defeated his archrival, 58 year old, Milorad Vucelic, who like Davic, had been a close aide of Milosevic. The SPS supports, in Parliament, the minority government of Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. Davic had been President of the SPS Central Committee before his election and afterward announced to the Congress he would, “…try to follow all the inheritance left by Slobodan Milosevic. But I will strive to make all citizens understand that we are on their side.” All sides hate the occupation.

The main item of the Milosevic-Serbian agenda is obviously the removal of the occupation forces. Belgrade realizes, as do most capitals in the former Yugoslavia, that no solution of any kind to their disputes and wars are possible as long as there is the disturbing, provoking military occupation of NATO-EU-UN. The building that houses the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) in Pristina was attacked recently by 5,000 stone throwing Albanians. In 1998, as Brussels-NATO was planning its troop presence, further south into Serbia and its Kosovo province, the U.S. Defence Secretary Willian Cohen warned if NATO deploys troops there they could be attacked by both sides, Serbian and Albanian nationalist groups that have connections with Islamic terrorists – Tehran.

The chaos Tehran sponsors in Iraq is being replicated in the former Yugoslavia and what set the stage for the chaos was the recognition of the newly independent states, a recognition that destroyed the country in 1991, especially the crooked boundary of Croatia that cut off Bosnia-Hercegovina and Serbia’s access to the Adriatic Sea. The recognition deliberately encouraged the disputes that had begun in Yugoslavia ever since the death of their President Marshal Josip Broz Tito in 1980.

Preparations to pursue the inheritance from Milosevic were indicated this past September when Belgrade held its first military parade in 30 years. The legacy of hatred left by Milosevic is still very much alive in the Serbian community and they are by no means an isolated country with no support. After the fighting on this theatre is over, after Tehran and the Jihad has run its course through here, the warring capitals in the former Yugoslavia may then decide to prevent future civil wars by re-constituting the country as a “Fourth Yugoslavia”. The First one was ruled by the monarchy after the First World War that was ended with the invasion by Nazi Germany in 1941, the Second Yugoslvia was controlled by Tito from 1945-80 and the Third Yugoslavia was composed of Serbia-Montenegro after the division of the country in 1991. Montenegro has since become independent.

Tehran-Moscow will probably be the first governments to recognize the Fourth.

Willard Payne is an international affairs analyst who specializes in International Relations. A graduate of Western Illinois University with a concentration in East-West Trade and East-West Industrial Cooperation, he has been providing incisive analysis to NewsBlaze. He is the author of Imagery: The Day Before.